Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks

Map showing the major Varangian trade routes: the Volga trade route (in red) and the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks (in purple). Other trade routes of the 8th to the 11th centuries shown in orange.

The trade route from the Varangians to the Eastern Roman Empire (Swedish: Vägen från varjagerna till grekerna,Greek: Εμπορική Οδός Βαράγγων - Ελλήνων, Russian: Путь из варяг в греки, Put' iz varjag v greki), was a medieval trade route that connected Scandinavia, Kievan Rus' and the Eastern Roman Empire. The route allowed traders along its length to establish a direct prosperous trade with the Empire, and prompted some of them to settle in the territories of present-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The majority of the route comprised a long-distance waterway, including the Baltic Sea, several rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, and rivers of the Dnieperriver system, with portages on the drainage divides. An alternative route was along the Dniestr river with stops on the Western shore of Black Sea, these more specific sub-routes are sometimes referred to as the Dnieper trade route and Dniestr trade route, respectively.

The route from the Varangians to the Greeks was first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, but its effects were reported much earlier, in the early ninth century when the Byzantines noted newcomers in their regions, the Varangians. Though this has come to mean “Vikings” to many, the term for the Byzantines meant all Scandinavians and their kindred living in what is now Russia.

The route was probably established in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, when Varangian explorers searched for plunder but also for slaves and lucrative goods, the route gained significant importance from the tenth until the first third of the eleventh century, concurrently with the Volga trade route and the trade route from the Khazars to the Germans.

According to Constantine VII, the Krivichs and other tribes dependent on Kiev transported hollowed-out sailboats, or monoxyla, which could accommodate thirty to forty people, to places along the rivers. These sailboats were then transported along the Dnieper to Kiev. There they were sold to the Varangians who re-equipped them and loaded them with merchandise.[2]

Places named include Smolensk (Μιλινισκα), Liubech (Τελιουτζα), Chernihiv (Τζερνιγωγα), Vyshhorod (Βουσεγραδε), Vytachiv (Vitichev, Βιτετζεβη), and Kiev (Κια[ο]βα). Some of these cities had alternate names in Old Norse, and Constantine quotes some of them: So Novgorod (Νεμογαρδα) is the same as Hólmgarðr (‘Island Enclosure’) and Nýgarðr (‘New Enclosure’); Kiev is equally called Kœnugarðr (‘Boatyard’) or Σαμβατας, which might derive from Norse Sandbakki-áss (‘Sandbank Ridge’). Though Constantine Zuckerman suggests a more obvious etymology, from the Turkic (Khazar) roots sam and bat (literally, ‘upper fortress’).[3] The runestone N 62 preserves the name Vitaholmr (‘demarcation islet’) for Vytachiv.

On the Dnieper, the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids, where they had to be on guard for Pecheneg nomads. The rapids began below Dnipro where the river turns south and fell 50 meters in 66 kilometers, they don't exist anymore, as a chain of basins was established starting from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Slavonic and Norse names of the Dnieper rapids, with translations,[4] and Constantine’s Greek spelling

The Varangian boats were used along the rivers and along the Black Sea shores. According to Constantine VII, the navigation near the western shore of Black Sea contained stops at Sulina (Danube Delta), Conopa, Constantia (localities today in Romania). There are some remains of the Varangian presence in this area at Murfatlar Cave Complex near Constantia (today Constanţa, Romania).[5] Numerous runic inscriptions, symbols and even a graffiti of a Viking navy are visible on the walls of the rock church from Murfatlar.[6][7] A rune stone from the Sjonhem cemetery in Gotland dating from the 11th century commemorates a merchant Rodfos who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed north of the Danube by the Blakumenn (Vlachs)[8]

In the second half of the eleventh century, the Crusades opened more lucrative routes from Europe to the Orient through the Crusader states of the Middle East. By that time, Rus' had strengthened its commercial ties with Western Europe, and the route from the Varangians to the Greeks gradually lost its significance, for a related military route, see Muravsky Trail.

A large part of the best-selling Swedish historical novel The Long Ships (original Swedish Röde Orm) by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson describes the adventures of a Danish ship crew (with a pilot from Gotland) taking this route in the late 10th Century.

In the comic strip Prince Valiant, pages 932 (19 Dec 1954) to 988 (15 Jan 1956), the eponymous main character and company travel on two Viking longships from Constantinople to Scandia via this route, during which they encounter Patzinaks and Polotjans.

1.
Volga trade route
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In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea, via the Volga River. The Rus used this route to trade with Muslim countries on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The route functioned concurrently with the Dnieper trade route, better known as the route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The Volga trade route was established by the Varangians who settled in Northwestern Russia in the early 9th century, about 10 km south of the Volkhov River entry into Lake Ladoga, they established a settlement called Ladoga. Archaeological evidence suggests Rus trading activities along the Volga trade route as early as the end of the 8th century. The earliest and the richest finds of Arabic coins in Europe were discovered on the territory of present-day Russia, particularly along the Volga and these coins include Sassanid, Arab, and Arabo-Sassanid dirhams, the latest of them dated to 804-805. From Aldeigjuborg, the Rus could travel up the Volkhov River to Novgorod, then to Lake Ilmen, taking their boats around 3 kilometers over a portage, they reached the sources of Volga. The traders brought furs, honey, and slaves through territory held by Finnish, from there, they continued by way of the Volga, to the Khazar Khaganate, whose capital Atil was a busy entrepot on the shore of the Caspian Sea. From Atil, the Rus merchants traveled across the sea to join the caravan routes leading to Baghdad, modern scholars have also clashed over the interpretation of ibn Khordadbehs report that the Rus used Saqlab interpreters. Anti-Normanists construed this passage as evidence that the Rus and their interpreters shared a common Slavic mother tongue, Slavic, however, was a lingua franca in the Eastern Europe at that time. Johannes Brøndsted interpreted ibn Fadlans commentary as indicating that these Rus retained their Scandinavian customs regarding weapons, punishments, ship-burials, the expedition was unsuccessful, and afterwards, no attempts were made to reopen the route between the Baltic and Caspian seas by the Norsemen. Volga route played a role in the inner trade of the Golden Horde. International trade finally declined at the Volga only after the fall of the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in, but the river kept its importance for long-distance trade—this time, trade within Russia as well as between Russia and Persia. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, the Vikings in History 2nd ed. Routledge. When Did Rus/Rus Merchants First Visit Khazaria and Baghdad, archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 7, pp. 213–219

2.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead

3.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population

4.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi

5.
Trade route
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A trade route is a logistical network identified as a of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water, among notable trade routes was the Amber Road, which served as a dependable network for long-distance trade. Maritime trade along the Spice Route became prominent during the Middle Ages, during the Middle Ages, organizations such as the Hanseatic League, aimed at protecting interests of the merchants, and trade became increasingly prominent. In modern times, commercial activity shifted from the trade routes of the Old World to newer routes between modern nation-states. Innovative transportation of modern times includes pipeline transport and the relatively well-known trade involving rail routes, automobiles, one of the vital instruments which facilitated long distance trade was portage and the domestication of beasts of burden. Organized caravans, visible by the 2nd millennium BCE, could carry goods across a distance as fodder was mostly available along the way. The domestication of camels allowed Arabian nomads to control the long distance trade in spices, caravans were useful in long-distance trade largely for carrying luxury goods, the transportation of cheaper goods across large distances was not profitable for caravan operators. With productive developments in iron and bronze technologies, newer trade routes—dispensing innovations of civilizations—began to rise, evidence of maritime trade between civilizations dates back at least 90 millennia. Navigation was known in Sumer between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BCE, and was known by the Indians. The Egyptians had trade routes through the Red Sea, importing spices from the Land of Punt, maritime trade began with safer coastal trade and evolved with the manipulation of the monsoon winds, soon resulting in trade crossing boundaries such as the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. South Asia had multiple maritime trade routes which connected it to Southeast Asia, Indian connections to various Southeast Asian states buffered it from blockages on other routes. By making use of the trade routes, bulk commodity trade became possible for the Romans in the 2nd century BCE. A Roman trading vessel could span the Mediterranean in a month at one-sixtieth the cost of over-land routes, the peninsula of Anatolia lay on the commercial land routes to Europe from Asia as well as the sea route from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Records from the 19th century BCE attest to the existence of an Assyrian merchant colony at Kanesh in Cappadocia, trading networks of the Old World included the Grand Trunk Road of India and the Incense Road of Arabia. Parts of the Mediterranean world, Roman Britain, Tigris-Euphrates river system, beyond this was a margin which included not only temperate areas such as Europe, but the dry steppe corridor of central Asia. This was truly a world system, even though it occupied only a portion of the western Old World. Whilst each civilization emphasized its ideological autonomy, all were part of a common world of interacting components. These routes - spreading religion, trade and technology - have historically been vital to the growth of urban civilization

6.
Scandinavia
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Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries

7.
Kievan Rus'
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Kievan Rus was a loose federation of East Slavic tribes in Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century, under the reign of the Rurik dynasty. The modern peoples of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia all claim Kievan Rus as their cultural ancestors, according to Russian historiography the first ruler to start uniting East Slavic lands into what has become known as Kievan Rus was Prince Oleg. He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, Sviatoslav I achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus territorial control, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great introduced Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise, his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the state declined beginning in the late 11th century and during the 12th century, disintegrating into various rival regional powers. The state finally fell to the Mongol invasion of the 1240s. During its existence, Kievan Rus was known as the land of the Rus, in Greek as Ῥωσία, in Old French as Russie, Rossie, in Latin as Russia, and from the 12th century also Ruthenia. Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi, the Finnish designation for Sweden, and Ros, the term Kievan Rus was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian and Ukrainian as Кіеўская Русь Kijeŭskaja Rus’ and Ки́ївська Русь Kyivska Rus’, prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus in the 9th century AD, the lands between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea were primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper, to their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, a group of Slavicized tribes with Iranian origins, the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi, and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, controversy persists over whether the Rus’ were Varangians or Slavs. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources, attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the myths of modern states in the region. According to the Normanist view, the Rus were Scandinavians, while Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians generally argue that the Rus were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, nevertheless, archaeological evidence from the area suggests that a Scandinavian population was present during the 10th century at the latest. On balance, it likely that the Rus proper were a small minority of Scandinavians who formed an elite ruling class. Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court, identifies the Russi with the Norse, leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus as Scythians and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs

8.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD

9.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

10.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

11.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling

12.
Waterway
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A waterway is any navigable body of water. A shipping route consists of one or several waterways, Waterways can include rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, and canals. Vessels using waterways vary from small animal-drawn barges to immense ocean tankers and ocean liners, media related to Waterways at Wikimedia Commons Waterscape - Britains official guide to canals, rivers and lakes

13.
Baltic Sea
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The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names

14.
Dnieper
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It is the longest river of Ukraine and Belarus and the fourth longest river in Europe. The total length ranges between 2,145 km and 2,201 km with a basin of 504,000 square kilometres. The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations, the Dnieper is an important navigable waterway for the economy of Ukraine and is connected via the Dnieper–Bug Canal to other waterways in Europe. In antiquity, the river was known to the Greeks as the Borysthenes and was part of the Amber Road, Arheimar, a capital of the Goths, was located on the Dnieper, according to the Hervarar saga. The name Dnieper is derived from Sarmatian Dānu apara the river on the far side, according to V. Abaev the name Dnieper derives from Scythian Dānu apr deep river, while the name Dniester is combination of Scythian Dānu and Thracian Ister, the old name of Dniester. In the three countries through which it flows it has essentially the name, albeit pronounced differently, Russian, Днепр, Belarusian, Дняпро or Днепр, Ukrainian. The late Greek and Roman authors called it Δάναπρις - Danapris and Danaper respectively - and its Old East Slavic name used at the time of Kievan Rus was Slavuta or Slavutych, the Huns called it Var, and Bulgars - Buri-Chai. The name in Crimean Tatar, Özü, the total length of the river is 2,145 kilometres, of which 485 km are within Russia,700 km are within Belarus, and 1,095 km are within Ukraine. Its basin covers 504,000 square kilometres, of which 289,000 km2 are within Ukraine,118,360 km2 are within Belarus, the source of the Dnieper is the sedge bogs of the Valdai Hills in central Russia, at an elevation of 220 m. For 115 km of its length, it serves as the border between Belarus and Ukraine and its estuary, or liman, used to be defended by the strong fortress of Ochakiv. On the Dnepr River to the south of Komarin urban-type settlement, Braghin District, the Dnieper has many tributaries with 89 being rivers of 100+ km. The water resources of the Dnieper basin compose around 80% out of all Ukraine, Dnieper Rapids were part of trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, first mentioned in the Kiev Chronicle. The route was established in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. On the Dnieper the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids, after Dnieper Hydroelectric Station was built in 1932, they were inundated by Dnieper Reservoir. The river is part of the Quagga mussels native range, the mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world where it has become an invasive species. From the mouth of the Prypiat River to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, there are six sets of dams and hydroelectric stations, the first constructed was the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station near Zaporizhia, built in 1927–1932 with an output of 558 MW. It was destroyed during World War II, but was rebuilt in 1948 with an output of 750 MW, the Dnieper River in different regions Major cities, over 100,000 in population, are in bold script. Cities and towns located on the Dnieper are listed in order from the source to its mouth, Arheimar

15.
Drainage system (geomorphology)
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In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of the land, whether a region is dominated by hard or soft rocks. Geomorphologists and hydrologists often view streams as being part of drainage basins, a drainage basin is the topographic region from which a stream receives runoff, throughflow, and groundwater flow. The number, size, and shape of the drainage basins found in an area vary and the larger the topographic map, according to the configuration of the channels, drainage systems can fall into one of several categories known as drainage patterns. Drainage patterns depend on the topography and geology of the land, a drainage system is described as accordant if its pattern correlates to the structure and relief of the landscape over which it flows. Dendritic drainage systems are the most common form of drainage system, in a dendritic system, there are many contributing streams, which are then joined together into the tributaries of the main river. They develop where the channel follows the slope of the terrain. Dendritic systems form in V-shaped valleys, as a result, the types must be impervious and non-porous. A parallel drainage system is a pattern of rivers caused by slopes with some relief. Because of the slopes, the streams are swift and straight, with very few tributaries. This system forms on uniformly sloping surfaces, for example, rivers flowing southeast from the Aberdare Mountains in Kenya, parallel drainage patterns form where there is a pronounced slope to the surface. A parallel pattern also develops in regions of parallel, elongate landforms like outcropping resistant rock bands, tributary streams tend to stretch out in a parallel-like fashion following the slope of the surface. A parallel pattern sometimes indicates the presence of a fault that cuts across an area of steeply folded bedrock. All forms of transitions can occur between parallel, dendritic, and trellis patterns, the geometry of a trellis drainage system is similar to that of a common garden trellis used to grow vines. As the river flows along a valley, smaller tributaries feed into it from the steep slopes on the sides of mountains. These tributaries enter the river at approximately 90 degree angle. Trellis drainage is characteristic of folded mountains, such as the Appalachian Mountains in North America, rectangular drainage develops on rocks that are of approximately uniform resistance to erosion, but which have two directions of joining at approximately right angles. The joints are less resistant to erosion than the bulk rock so erosion tends to preferentially open the joints

16.
Portage
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Portage or portaging is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A place where this occurs is also called a portage. Early French explorers in New France and French Louisiana encountered many rapids, the Native Americans carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. Over time, important portages were sometimes provided with canals with locks, primitive portaging generally involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over ones shoulders, historically, voyageurs often employed tump lines on their heads to carry loads on their backs. Portages can be many kilometers in length, such as the 19-kilometre Methye Portage, some portages involve very little elevation change, such as the very short Mavis Grind in Shetland, which crosses an isthmus. This section deals mostly with the freight canoes used by the Canadian Voyageurs. Portage trails usually began as animal tracks and were improved by tramping or blazing, in a few places iron-plated wooden rails were laid to take a handcart. Heavily used routes sometimes evolved into roads when sledges, rollers or oxen were used, sometimes railways or canals were built. If the second course were chosen, the boat would be controlled by the avant standing in front with a long paddle, the avant had a better view and was in charge but the gouvernail had more control over the boat. The other canoemen provided power under the instructions of the avant, going upstream was more difficult, as there were many places where the current was too swift to paddle. Where the river bottom was shallow and firm, voyageurs would stand in the canoe and push it upstream with 3-metre poles. If the shoreline was reasonably clear the canoe could be tracked or lined, that is, in worse conditions, the demi-chargé technique was used. Half the cargo was unloaded, the canoe forced upstream, unloaded, in still worse currents, the entire cargo was unloaded and carried overland while the canoe was forced upstream. In the worst case a full portage was necessary, the canoe was carried overland by two or four men The cargo was divided into standard 41-kilogram packs or pièces with each man responsible for about six. One pack would be carried by a tumpline and one on the back, to allow regular rests the voyageur would drop his pack at a pose about every 1 kilometre and go back for the next load. The time for a portage was estimated at one hour per half mile, the Diolkos was a paved trackway in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf. It was constructed to high ranking Despots to conduct business in the justice system

17.
Drainage divide
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A drainage divide, water divide, divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting, is the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins. In hilly country, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a range of hills or mountains. In flat country—especially where the ground is marshy—the divide may be harder to discern, a valley floor divide is a low drainage divide that runs across a valley, sometimes created by deposition or stream capture. Settlements are often built on valley-floor divides in the Alps, examples are Eben im Pongau, Kirchberg in Tirol and Waidring. Extremely low divides with heights of less than two metres are found on the North German Plain within the Urstromtäler, for example, between Havel and Finow in the Eberswalde Urstromtal. In marsh deltas such as the Okavango, the largest drainage area on earth, or in large areas, such as the Finnish Lakeland. Another case is bifurcation, where the watershed is effectively in the river bed, in pre-industrial times, water divides were crossed at portages. Later, canals connected adjoining drainage basins, a key problem in such canals is ensuring a sufficient water supply, category, Drainage basins List of watershed topics European watershed Scottish watershed River source

18.
Dniestr
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The Dniester River, or Dnister River is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova, finally discharging into the Black Sea on Ukrainian territory again, the name Dniester derives from Sarmatian dānu nazdya the close river. The Dnieper, also of Sarmatian origin, derives from the opposite meaning, alternatively, according to V. Abaev Dniester would be a blend of Scythian dānu river and Thracian Ister, the previous name of the river, literally Dān-Ister. The Ancient Greek name of Dniester, Tyras, is from Scythian tūra, the names of the Don and Danube are also from the same Proto Indo-European word *dānu - river. In Russian, it is known as Днестр, translit, dnestr, in Yiddish, Nester נעסטער, in Turkish, Turla and during antiquity, it was called Tyras in Latin and Danastris in Greek. Classical authors have referred to it as Danaster. These early forms, without -i- but with -a-, contradict Abaevs hypothesis, edward Gibbon refers to the river both as the Niester and Dniester in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Dniester rises in Ukraine, near the city of Drohobych, close to the border with Poland, and flows toward the Black Sea. Its course marks part of the border of Ukraine and Moldova, after which it flows through Moldova for 398 kilometres and it later forms an additional part of the Moldova-Ukraine border, then flows through Ukraine to the Black Sea, where its estuary forms the Dniester Liman. Along the lower half of the Dniester, the bank is high and hilly while the eastern one is low. The river represents the de facto end of the Eurasian Steppe and its most important tributaries are Răut and Bîc. During the Neolithic, the Dniester River was the centre of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth at the time, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in this area from roughly 5300 to 2600 BC, leaving behind thousands of archeological sites. Their settlements had up to 15,000 inhabitants, making them among the first large farming communities in the world, in antiquity, the river was considered one of the principal rivers of European Sarmatia, and it was mentioned by many Classical geographers and historians. According to Herodotus it rose in a lake, whilst Ptolemy places its sources in Mount Carpates. It ran in a direction parallel with the Ister. It fell into the Pontus Euxinus to the northeast of the mouth of the Ister, scymnus describes it as of easy navigation, and abounding in fish. Ovid speaks of its rapid course, Greek authors referred to the river as Tyras. At a later period it obtained the name of Danastris or Danastus, whence its name of Dniester

19.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea

20.
Birka
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Björkö is located in Lake Mälaren,30 kilometers west of contemporary Stockholm, in the municipality of Ekerö. Generally regarded as Swedens oldest town, Birka has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, a silver ring from a Viking-era grave in Birka is the first ring with Arabic inscription from that era found in Scandinavia. Birka was also important as the site of the first known Christian congregation in Sweden, st Ansgars work was the first attempt to convert the inhabitants from the Norse religion to Christianity, and it was unsuccessful. Both Rimbert and Adam were German clergymen writing in Latin, there are no known Norse sources mentioning the name of the settlement, or even the settlement itself, and the original Norse name of Birka is unknown. Birca is the Latinised form given in the sources and Birka its contemporary, the Latin name is probably derived from an Old Norse word birk which probably meant a market place. Related to this was the Bjärköa law which regulated the life on places in Denmark, Norway. Both publications are silent on Bircas size, layout and appearance, based on Rimberts account, Birca was significant because it had a port and it was the place for the regional ting. Vita Ansgari and Gesta are sometimes ambiguous, which has caused controversy as to whether Birca. Many other locations have suggested through the years. However, Björkö is the location that can show remains of a town of Bircas significance. Birka was abandoned during the half of the 10th century. Based on the finds, the city seems to have silenced around 960. Roughly around the time, the nearby settlement of Sigtuna supplanted Birka as the main trading centre in the Mälaren area. The reasons for Birkas decline are disputed, the Baltic island of Gotland was also in a better strategic position for Russian-Byzantine trade, and was gaining eminence as a mercantile stronghold. Historian Neil Kent has speculated that the area may have been the victim of an enemy assault, the Varangian trade stations in Russia suffered a serious decline at roughly the same date. In Vita Ansgari monk and later archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen Rimbert gives the first known description of Birka, the town was the center of Catholic missionary activities in the 9th century Sweden. Rimberts interests were in the Christian faith, not so much in the Swedish geopolicy, Ansgar was already experienced in the missionary work in Denmark, and set forth to Sweden. Rimbert describes the trip very generally, It may suffice for me to say that while they were in the midst of their journey they fell into the hands of pirates

21.
Hedeby
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Hedeby was an important Viking Age trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the most important archaeological site in Schleswig-Holstein, the settlement developed as a trading centre at the head of a narrow, navigable inlet known as the Schlei, which connects to the Baltic Sea. Hedeby was the second largest Nordic town during the Viking Age, after Uppåkra in present-day southern Sweden, Hedeby was abandoned after its destruction in 1066. Hedeby was rediscovered in the late 19th century and excavations began in 1900, the Haithabu Museum was opened next to the site in 1985. The Old Norse name Heiða-býr simply translates to heath-settlement, the name is recorded in numerous spelling variants. Heiðabýr is the name in standard Old Norse, also anglicized as Heithabyr The Stone of Eric. Old English aet Haethe, mentioned by Alfred the Great Hedeby, the old name of the nearby town of Schleswig is Sliesthorp. It is possible that the two names were used interchangeably for the settlement, depending on which language was being used. Hedeby is first mentioned in the Frankish chronicles of Einhard who was in the service of Charlemagne, in 808 the Danish king Godfred destroyed a competing Slav trade centre named Reric, and it is recorded in the Frankish chronicles that he moved the merchants from there to Hedeby. This may have provided the impetus for the town to develop. The same sources record that Godfred strengthened the Danevirke, a wall that stretched across the south of the Jutland peninsula. The Danevirke joined the defensive walls of Hedeby to form an east-west barrier across the peninsula, the town itself was surrounded on its three landward sides by earthworks. At the end of the 9th century the northern and southern parts of the town were abandoned for the central section, later a 9-metre high semi-circular wall was erected to guard the western approaches to the town. On the eastern side, the town was bordered by the innermost part of the Schlei inlet, Hedeby became a principal marketplace because of its geographical location on the major trade routes between the Frankish Empire and Scandinavia, and between the Baltic and the North Sea. Between 800 and 1000 the growing power of the Vikings led to its dramatic expansion as a major trading centre. The following indicate the importance achieved by the town, The town was described by visitors from England, Hedeby became the seat of a bishop and belonged to the Archbishopric of Hamburg and Bremen. The town minted its own coins, Adam of Bremen reports that ships were sent from this portus maritimus to Slavic lands, to Sweden, Samland and even Greece. A Swedish dynasty founded by Olof the Brash is said to have ruled Hedeby during the last decades of the 9th century and this was told to Adam of Bremen by the Danish king Sweyn Estridsson, and it is supported by three runestones found in Denmark

22.
Gotland
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Gotland, Gutland in the local dialect Gutnish, is a province, county, municipality, and diocese of Sweden. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the north. The population is 57,221, of which about 23,600 live in Visby, the island of Gotland and the other areas of the province of Gotland make up less than one percent of Swedens total land area. From a military viewpoint, it occupies a location in the Baltic sea. The island is the home of the Gutes, and sites such as the Ajvide Settlement show that it has occupied since prehistory. This is consistent with the spread of peoples from the Middle East at about that time. Early on, Gotland became a center, with the town of Visby the most important Hanseatic city in the Baltic Sea. In late medieval times, the island had twenty district courts, each represented by its elected judge at the island-ting, new laws were decided at the landsting, which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole. Gutasaga contains legends of how the island was settled by Þieluar, according to some historians, it is therefore an effort not only to write down the history of Gotland, but also to assert Gotlands independence from Sweden. In 1361, Valdemar Atterdag of Denmark invaded the island, the Victual Brothers occupied the island in 1394 to set up a stronghold as a headquarters of their own in Visby. At last, Gotland became a fief of the Teutonic Knights, an invading army of Teutonic Knights conquered the island in 1398, destroying Visby and driving the Victual Brothers from Gotland. The number of Arab dirhams discovered on the island of Gotland alone is astoundingly high, in the various hoards located around the island, there are more of these silver coins than at any other site in Western Eurasia. The total sum is almost as great as the number that has been unearthed in the entire Muslim world, the Berezan Runestone, discovered in 1905 in Ukraine, was made by a Varangian trader named Grani in memory of his business partner Karl. It is assumed that they were from Gotland, the Mästermyr chest, an important artefact from the Viking Age, was found in Gotland. The authority of the landsting was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order, then sold to Eric of Pomerania, in late medieval times, the ting consisted of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants. Since the Treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, the island has remained under Swedish rule, the Order never regained its territory, and eventually it reestablished itself in Rome as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. On 22 April 1808, during the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia, a Russian army landed on the shores of Gotland near Grötlingbo. Under command of Nikolaus Andrejevich Bodisco 1,800 Russians took the city of Visby without any combat or engagement, and occupied the island

23.
Gulf of Finland
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The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it, other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn. The eastern parts of the Gulf of Finland belong to Russia, as the seaway to Saint Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland has been and continues to be of considerable strategic importance to Russia. Some of the problems affecting the Baltic Sea are at their most pronounced in the shallow gulf. The area of the gulf is 30,000 km2, the length is 400 km and the width varies from 70 km near the entrance to 130 km on the meridian of Moshchny Island, in the Neva Bay, it decreases to 12 km. The gulf is shallow with the depth decreasing from the entrance to the gulf to the continent. The sharpest change occurs near Narva-Jõesuu, which is why this place is called Narva wall, the average depth is 38 m with the maximum of 100 m. The depth of the Neva Bay is less than 6 metres, therefore, a channel was dug at the bottom for safe navigation. Because of the influx of fresh water from rivers, especially from the Neva River. The average water temperature is close to 0 °C in winter, in summer, it is 15–17 °C at the surface, the gulf is usually frozen from late November to late April, the freezing starts in the east and gradually proceeds to the west. Complete freezing is usually reached by late January, and it not occur in mild winters. There are frequent strong winds causing waves, surges of water. The northern coast of the gulf is high and winding, with abundant small bays and skerries only a few large bays, the coast is mostly sloping, there are abundant sandy dunes, with occasional pine trees. The southern shores are smooth and shallow, but along the entire coast runs the Baltic Klint with the height up to 55 m, in the east, the gulf ends with Neva Bay and on the west merges with the Baltic Sea. The gulf contains numerous banks, skerries and islands, starting from 1700, nineteen artificial islands with fortresses were built in the gulf by Russia. Their purpose was defense from attacks from water and their construction was urged by the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 and those include Fort Alexander, Krasnaya Gorka, Ino, Totleben, Kronshlot and others. The largest rivers flowing into the gulf are Neva, Narva, keila, Pirita, Jägala, Kunda, Luga, Sista and Kovashi flow into the gulf from the south. From the north flow Sestra River, Porvoo, Vantaa and several small rivers

24.
Neva River
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The Neva is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of 74 kilometres, it is the fourth largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge, the Neva is the only river flowing from Lake Ladoga. It flows through the city of Saint Petersburg, three towns of Shlisselburg, Kirovsk and Otradnoye, and dozens of settlements. The river is navigable throughout and is part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway and White Sea – Baltic Canal. There are at least three versions of the origin of the name Neva, from the ancient Finnish name of Lake Ladoga, from the Finnish, neva meaning swamp, or from the Swedish, ny – new river. Modern names for the distributaries of the delta were settled only by the end of the 18th century. In the Paleozoic, 300–400 million years ago, the territory of the modern delta of the Neva River was covered by a sea. Modern relief was formed as a result of glacier activity and its retreat formed the Littorina Sea, the water level of which was some 7 to 9 metres higher than the present level of the Baltic Sea. Then, the Tosna River was flowing in the bed of the Neva. In the north of the Karelian Isthmus, the Littorina Sea united by a strait with Lake Ladoga. The Mga River then flowed to the east, into Lake Ladoga, near the source of the Neva River. Near the modern Lake Ladoga, land rose faster, and a reservoir was formed. Its water level began to rise, eventually flooded the valley of Mga, the Ivanovo rapids of the modern Neva were created in the breakthrough area. So about 2000 BC the Neva was created with its tributaries Tosna, according to some newer data, it happened at 1410–1250 BC making the Neva a rather young river. The valley of Neva is formed by glacial and post-glacial sediments, the delta of Neva was formed at that time, which is actually pseudodelta, as it was formed not by accumulation of river material but by plunging into the past sediments. The Neva flows out of Lake Ladoga near Shlisselburg, flows through the Neva Lowland and it has a length of 74 kilometres, and the shortest distance from the source to the mouth is 45 kilometres. The river banks are low and steep, on average about 3 to 6 metres and 2 to 3 metres at the mouth. There are three turns, the Ivanovskye rapids, at Nevsky Forest Park of the Ust-Slavyanka region and near the Smolny Institute

25.
Lake Ladoga
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Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia just outside the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, and the 15th largest freshwater lake by area in the world, Ladoga Lacus, a methane lake on Saturns moon Titan, is named after the lake. In one of Nestors chronicles from the 12th century he mentions a lake called the Great Nevo, ancient Norse sagas and Hanseatic treaties both mention a city made of lakes named Old Norse Aldeigja or Aldoga. Since the beginning of the 14th century this hydronym was commonly known as Ladoga, according to T. N. Jackson, it can be taken almost for granted, that the name of Ladoga first referred to the river, then the city, and only then the lake. Therefore, he considers the primary hydronym Ladoga to originate in the inflow to the lower reaches of the Volkhov River whose Finnic name was Alodejoki river of the lowlands. The Germanic toponym was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis ald- → lad- to Old East Slavic, Ладога. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from Karelian, aalto wave and Karelian, aaltokas wavy, or from the Russian dialectal word алодь, meaning open lake, eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German. Through the intermediate form *Aldaugja, Old Norse, Aldeigja cam about, the lake has an average surface area of 17,891 km2. Its north-to-south length is 219 km and its width is 83 km. Basin area,276,000 km2, volume,837 km3, there are around 660 islands, with a total area of about 435 km2. Ladoga is, on average,5 m above sea level, most of the islands, including the famous Valaam archipelago, Kilpola and Konevets, are situated in the northwest of the lake. Separated from the Baltic Sea by the Karelian Isthmus, it drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Neva River, Lake Ladoga is navigable, being a part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway connecting the Baltic Sea with the Volga River. The Ladoga Canal bypasses the lake in the part, connecting the Neva to the Svir. The basin of Lake Ladoga includes about 50,000 lakes and 3,500 rivers longer than 10 km, about 85% of the water inflow is due to tributaries, 13% is due to precipitation, and 2% is due to underground waters. Geologically, the Lake Ladoga depression is a graben and syncline structure of Proterozoic age and this Ladoga–Pasha structure, as it known, hosts Jotnian sediments. During the Pleistocene glaciations the depression was partially stripped of its sedimentary rock fill by glacial overdeepening, deglaciation following the Weichsel glaciation took place in the Lake Ladoga basin between 12,500 and 11,500 radiocarbon years BP. Lake Ladoga was initially part of the Baltic Ice Lake, a historical stage of Baltic Sea. It is possible, though not certain, that Ladoga was isolated from it during regression of the subsequent Yoldia Sea brackish stage, at 9,500 BP, Lake Onega, previously draining into the White Sea, started emptying into Ladoga via the River Svir

26.
Volkhov River
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The Volkhov is a river in Novgorodsky and Chudovsky Districts of Novgorod Oblast and Kirishsky and Volkhovsky Districts of Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia. It connects Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga and belongs to the basin of the Neva River, the length of the river is 224 kilometres, and the area of its drainage basin is 80,200 square kilometres. The city of Veliky Novgorod, the towns of Kirishi, Volkhov, and Novaya Ladoga, a number of etymologies, none universally accepted, have been proposed for the name of the river. In his Etymological dictionary of the Russian language, Max Vasmer doubted some philologists opinion that the name is related to the Finnish velho or Russian volkhv. The Volkhov flows out of Lake Ilmen north into Lake Ladoga and it is the second largest tributary of Lake Ladoga. It is navigable over its whole length, discharge is highly variable depending primarily on the level of Lake Ilmen. The Volkhov is reported to reverse the direction of its flow in its section in exceptional circumstances. The river freezes up in late November, and breaks up in early April, the level of water is regulated by the dam of the Volkhov hydroelectric plant situated 25 km upstream from the mouth of the river. Apart from hydroelectric generating purposes, the dam serves to facilitate navigation in the part of the river previously known for its rapids. The upstream part of the Volkhov is connected to the Msta River by the Siversov Canal bypassing Lake Ilmen, the downstream part is connected with the Neva, the Syas River, and the Svir River by the New Ladoga Canal bypassing Lake Ladoga. The main tributaries are of the Volkhov are the Vishera, joins the Maly Volkhovets armlet, the Kerest, the Oskuya, the Pchyozhva, the Tigoda, the Chyornaya, the Vloya, the Olomna. The drainage basin of the Volkhov includes the parts of Novgorod and Leningrad Oblasts, as well as areas in Tver Oblast, Pskov Oblast of Russia. The main rivers belonging to the basin of the Volkhov are the Msta, the Lovat, the Pola. Its role in facilitating trade is due to its position as the only river penetrating deep into inland Russia that flows north towards the Baltic, in the mid-9th century, the Volkhov was a heavily populated trade artery of the Varangian-dominated Rus Khaganate. It was a part of the most important trade route connecting Northern Europe to the Orient, by way of the Volga. The ancient Russian capital Staraya Ladoga and one of the most significant Russian medieval cities Velikiy Novgorod are located along the Volkhov, after entering the Volkhov near Gorchakovshchina and Lyubsha, commercial vessels of the Vikings cast anchor at the major trade emporium of Aldeigja. Then they rowed upstream past a series of rapids, guarded by the settlements at Novye Duboviki. There was another outpost at Kholopy Gorodok,13 km north of present-day Velikiy Novgorod, or rather Holmgard and it seems on the whole likely that such pre-urban settlements gave the country its Norse name of Gardariki

27.
Staraya Ladoga
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It used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries. A multi-ethnic settlement, it was dominated by Scandinavians who were called by the name of Rus, for that reason, it is sometimes called the first capital of Russia, though back then Russia didnt exist for many centuries to come. Dendrochronology suggests that Ladoga was founded in 753, until 950, it was one of the most important trading ports of Eastern Europe. Merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Ladoga to Novgorod and this route is known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. An alternative way led down the Volga River along the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, tellingly, the oldest Arabian Middle Age coin in Europe was unearthed in Ladoga. The original inhabitants of the settlement were Norsemen, the original Finnish name, Alode-joki, was rendered as Aldeigja in Norse language and later as Ladoga in Old East Slavic. According to the Hypatian Codex that was created at the end of 13th century, Ruriks successors later moved to Novgorod and then to Kiev where foundations for the powerful state of Kievan Rus were laid. There are several huge kurgans, or royal funerary barrows, at the outskirts of Ladoga, one of them is said to be Ruriks grave, and another one—that of his successor Oleg. The Heimskringla and other Norse sources mention that in the late 990s Eric Haakonsson of Norway raided the coast and set the town ablaze. Ladoga was the most important trading center in Eastern Europe from about 800 to 900 CE, Ladogas next mention in chronicles is dated 1019, when Ingigerd of Sweden married Yaroslav of Novgorod. Under the terms of their settlement, Yaroslav ceded Ladoga to his wife, who appointed her fathers cousin. This information is confirmed by sagas and archaeological evidence, which suggests that Ladoga gradually evolved into a primarily Varangian settlement, at least two Swedish kings spent their youths in Ladoga, king Stenkil and Inge I, and possibly also king Anund Gårdske. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Ladoga functioned as a trade outpost of the powerful Novgorod Republic, later its trade significance declined and most of the population engaged in fishing in the 15th century. After new fortresses such as Oreshek and Korela were constructed in the 14th century further to the west of Ladoga, Ladoga belonged to the Vodskaya pyatina of the Republic and contained eighty-four homesteads in the 15th century, most of the land belonged to the church. The Novgorodians built there a citadel with five towers and several churches, the reconstruction of one of the towers of Staraya Ladogas fortress was scheduled to be completed in 2010. The fortress was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, while the churches of St. George. Inside St. Georges, some magnificent 12th-century frescoes are still visible, in 1703, Peter the Great founded the town of Novaya Ladoga closer to the bank of Lake Ladoga. The ancient fortress thenceforth declined and came to be known as Staraya Ladoga, the heart of Staraya Ladoga is an old fortress where the Yelena River flows into the Volkhov

28.
Veliky Novgorod
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It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just downstream from its outflow from Lake Ilmen, UNESCO recognized Novgorod as a World Heritage Site in 1992. At its peak during the 14th century, the city was the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod recognizes 859 as the year when the city was first mentioned. Archaeological dating is fairly easy and accurate to within 15–25 years, as the streets were paved with wood, and most of the houses made of wood, allowing tree ring dating. The Varangian name of the city Holmgård/Holmgard is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, originally, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Rurikovo Gorodische. First mention of this Nordic or Germanic etymology to the name of the city of Novgorod occurs in the 10th-century policy manual De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in 882, Ruriks successor, Oleg of Novgorod, conquered Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus. Novgorods size as well as its political, economic, and cultural influence made it the second most important city in Kievan Rus, according to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as the legendary Gostomysl, Dobrynya, Konstantin. Of all their princes, Novgorodians most cherished the memory of Yaroslav the Wise and his son, Vladimir, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day. In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki, four Viking kings—Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada—sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the 1030 death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, the town of Visby in Gotland functioned as the leading trading center in the Baltic before the Hansa League. At Novgorod in 1080, Visby merchants established a trading post which they named Gutagard, later, in the first half of the 13th century, merchants from northern Germany also established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof. At about the time, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges. In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the posadnik, or mayor, the tysyatsky, or thousandman, originally the head of the town militia but later a commercial and judicial official, was also elected by the Veche. Another important local official was the Archbishop of Novgorod who shared power with the boyars, archbishops were elected by the Veche or by the drawing of lots, and after their election, were sent to the metropolitan for consecration. While a basic outline of the officials and the Veche can be drawn up. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one officials power ended, throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally

29.
Lake Ilmen
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Lake Ilmen is a historically important lake in the Novgorod Oblast of Russia, formerly a vital part of the Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The city of Novgorod lies six kilometers below the lakes outflow, according to the Max Vasmers Etymological Dictionary, the name of the lake originates from the Finnic Ilmajärvi, which means air lake. There are many lakes in Russia with their names being derivative from Lake Ilmen, the average surface area is 982 square kilometres. The lake is fed by 52 inflowing rivers, the four main ones being the Msta, the Pola, the Lovat, and it is drained through a single outlet, the Volkhov, into Lake Ladoga, and subsequently via the Neva into the Gulf of Finland. The source of the Volkhov is marked by the Peryn Chapel built in the 1220s, the basin of Lake Ilmen contains vast areas in Novgorod, Pskov, and Tver Oblasts of Russia, as well as minor areas in the north of Vitebsk Region in Belarus. The water level is regulated by the Volkhov hydroelectric plant situated downstream the Volkhov River, water temperature in July is 19-20 °C. Bathing season is about 90 days, shipping lines are Veliky Novgorod – Staraya Russa and Veliky Novgorod – Shimsk. There is a fishery in the lake, the lake area was the location of an important battle during World War II, the Demyansk Pocket. Media related to Ilmen Lake at Wikimedia Commons

30.
Lovat River
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The source of the Lovat is Lake Lovatets in northeastern Belarus, and the Lovat is a tributary of Lake Ilmen. Its main tributaries are the Loknya, the Kunya, the Polist, the Redya, the towns of Velikiye Luki and Kholm, as well as the urban-type settlement of Parfino, are located on the banks of the Lovat. From the source, the Lovat flows in the direction along the border between Russia and Belarus, the it turns north and enters Pskov Oblast of Russia, crossing the border as Lake Sesito. In this area, the Lowat flows through the district, passing, in particular. Downstrean of Velikiye Luki, in the selo of Podberezye, the Lovat turns northwest, close to Lake Ilmen, the Lovat shares a river delta with the Pola and the Polist, though technically Polist is counted as a tributary of the Lovat. The river basin of the Lovat comprises vast areas in the south of Novgorod and Pskov Oblasts, as well as areas in Tver Oblast. The Lovat is listed in the State Water Register of Russia as navigable between Parfino and the mouth, however, there is no passenger navigation, until the 1990s, it was used for timber rafting. The Lovat served as a stretch of the route from the Varangians to the Greeks. From Lake Ilmen, ships wen upstream the Lovat and then the Kunya, before ending up in the Western Dvina, media related to Lovat River at Wikimedia Commons Река Ловать

31.
Kunya River
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The Kunya is a river in Kunyinsky, Velikoluksky, and Loknyansky Districts of Pskov Oblast, Toropetsky District of Tver Oblast, and Kholmsky District of Novgorod Oblast in Russia. It is a right tributary of the Lovat River. It is 258 kilometres long, and the area of its basin 5,143 square kilometres, the town of Kholm is located in the mouth of the Kunya. The principal tributaries of the Kunya are the Oka, the Serezha, the Maly Tuder, the source of the Kunya is in Lake Vsteselovo in the central part of Kunyinsky District, in the southeast of Pskov Oblast. It flows out of the lake in the direction and gradually makes a U-turn. Some stretches of the Kunya make the border between Kunyinsky and Velikoluksky Districts, and, more to the north, between Velikoluksky District and Tver Oblast. North of the village of Chaltsevo, the border between the oblasts turns west, and the Kunya continues north and enters Toropetsky District of Tver Oblast, the Kunya accepts the Serezha from the right and a short stretch of it forms the border between Pskov and Tver Oblasts again. North of this stretch, at the point, the Kunya enters Novgorod Oblast. The mouth of the Kunya is located in the town of Kholm, the urban-type settlement of Kunya lies within the drainage basin of the Kunya, but not on the banks of the river

32.
Daugava
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The River Daugava or Western Dvina is a river rising in the Valdai Hills, Russia, flowing through Russia, Belarus, and Latvia and into the Gulf of Riga. The total length of the river is 1,020 km,325 km in Russia,338 km in Belarus, within Latvia it flows through Latgale, Zemgale, Vidzeme and Riga, before flowing into the Gulf of Riga. The total catchment area of the river is 87,900 km2,33,150 km2 of which are within Belarus. According to the Max Vasmers Etymological Dictionary, the toponym Dvina clearly cannot stem from a Uralic language, the river began experiencing environmental deterioration in the era of Soviet collective agriculture and a wave of hydroelectric power projects. Ruba, Vitebsk, Beshankovichy, Polotsk with Boris stones strewn in the vicinity, Navapolatsk, Dzisna, Verkhnedvinsk, krāslava, Daugavpils, Līvāni, Jēkabpils, Pļaviņas, Aizkraukle, Jaunjelgava, Lielvārde, Kegums, Ogre, Ikšķile, Salaspils and Riga. Beginning around the sixth century AD, Viking explorers crossed the Baltic Sea and entered the Daugava River, in medieval times the Daugava was an important navigation trading route for transport of furs from the north and Byzantine silver. In Belarus, water pollution of the Daugava is considered severe, with the chief sources being treated wastewater, fish-farming. Daugava River photos at flickr Richard C, francis W. Carter and David Turnock. Environmental problems of East Central Europe

33.
Kiev
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Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many industries, higher education institutions. The city has an infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport. The citys name is said to derive from the name of Kyi, during its history, Kiev, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city probably existed as a centre as early as the 5th century. A Slavic settlement on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, Kiev was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varangians in the mid-9th century. Under Varangian rule, the city became a capital of the Kievan Rus, completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come. It was a capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbours, first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland. The city prospered again during the Russian Empires Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, in 1917, after the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence from the Russian Empire, Kiev became its capital. From 1919 Kiev was an important center of the Armed Forces of South Russia and was controlled by the White Army. From 1921 onwards Kiev was a city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed by the Red Army, during World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, remaining the third largest city of the Soviet Union. During the countrys transformation to an economy and electoral democracy. Kievs armament-dependent industrial output fell after the Soviet collapse, adversely affecting science, Kiev emerged as the most pro-Western region of Ukraine where parties advocating tighter integration with the European Union dominate during elections. As a prominent city with a history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjev, the name is associated with that of Kyi, the legendary eponymous founder of the city. Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, on one of the oldest English maps of the region, Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, in the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall, the city is referred to as Kiovia

34.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis

35.
Varangian runestones
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Other runestones that deal with Varangian expeditions include the Serkland Runestones and the Ingvar Runestones. There is also an article for the Baltic expeditions runestones. In addition, there were also voyages to Western Europe mentioned on runestones that are treated in the articles Viking Runestones, England Runestones and this vast area was a rich source of pelts, hides and people, and it was an important component in the contemporary Swedish economy. All of the stones were engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark, ISBN 91-7156-015-7 Jansson, Sven B. F. Runes in Sweden. Swedish Institute for Linguistics and Heritage, the Origin of Rus, Old Scandinavian Sources Other than the Sagas. Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata

36.
Dnieper Rapids
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The Dnieper Rapids are the historic rapids on the Dnieper river composed of outcrops of granites, gneisses and other basement rocks of the Ukrainian Shield. The rapids began below present-day Dnipropetrovsk where the river turns south and fell 50 meters in 66 kilometers, after Dnieper Hydroelectric Station was built in 1932, they were inundated by Dnieper Reservoir. Dnieper Rapids were part of route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The route was established in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. On the Dnieper the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids, Rapids existence was mentioned in Emperor Constantine VIIs work De Administrando Imperio and in The Tale of Igors Campaign.4 km in length and over 1 km in width. Its roaring could be heard several kilometers away. Vovnyzky Budylo Lyshny - most likely called this because it was the least dangerous, correspondence of some of the names from different historic sources is seen in the table below

37.
Varangians
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According to the 12th century Kievan Primary Chronicle, a group of Varangians known as the Rus settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik. Before Rurik, the Rus might have ruled an earlier hypothetical polity, Ruriks relative Oleg conquered Kiev in 882 and established the state of Kievan Rus, which was later ruled by Ruriks descendants. Engaging in trade, piracy, and mercenary activities, Varangians roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki and they controlled the Volga trade route, connecting the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, and the Dnieper and Dniester trade route leading to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Attracted by the riches of Constantinople, the Varangian Rus initiated a number of Rus-Byzantine Wars, at least from the early 10th century many Varangians served as mercenaries in the Byzantine Army, constituting the elite Varangian Guard. Eventually most of them, both in Byzantium and in Eastern Europe, were converted from paganism to Orthodox Christianity, culminating in the Christianization of Kievan Rus in 988. Coinciding with the decline of the Viking Age, the influx of Scandinavians to Rus stopped. Some scholars seem to assume a derivation from vár with the common suffix -ing, the reduction of the second part of the word could be parallel to that seen in Old Norse foringi leader, correspondent to Old English foregenga and Gothic

38.
Primary Chronicle
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The Tale of Past Years or Primary Chronicle is a history of Kievan Rus from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113. The work is considered to be a source in the interpretation of the history of the Eastern Slavs. Tradition long regarded the original compilation as the work of a monk named Nestor, Nestor worked at the court of Sviatopolk II of Kiev and probably shared Sviatopolks pro-Scandinavian policies. The early part of the Chronicle features many anecdotal stories, among them those of the arrival of the three Varangian brothers, the founding of Kiev, the murder of Askold and Dir, ca. 882, the death of Oleg in 912, the cause of which was reported forseen by him, and the thorough vengeance taken by Olga, the wife of Igor, on the Drevlians, who had murdered her husband. Her actions secured Kievan Rus from the Drevlians, preventing her from having to marry a Drevlian prince, in the year 1116, Nestors text was extensively edited by the hegumen Sylvester who appended his name at the end of the chronicle. As Vladimir Monomakh was the patron of the village of Vydubychi where Sylvesters monastery was situated and this second version of Nestors work is preserved in the Laurentian codex. A third edition followed two years later and centered on the person of Vladimirs son and heir, Mstislav the Great, the author of this revision could have been Greek, for he corrected and updated much data on Byzantine affairs. This latest revision of Nestors work is preserved in the Hypatian codex, because the original of the chronicle as well as the earliest known copies are lost, it is difficult to establish the original content of the chronicle. The two main sources for the text as it is known presently are the Laurentian Codex. The Laurentian Codex was compiled in what are today Russian lands by the Nizhegorod monk Laurentius for the Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1377, the original text he used was a lost codex compiled for the Grand Duke Mikhail of Tver in 1305. The account continues until 1305, but the years 898–922, 1263–83, the manuscript was acquired by the famous Count Musin-Pushkin in 1792 and subsequently presented to the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. The Hypatian Codex dates to the 15th century and it was written in what are today Ukrainian lands and incorporates much information from the lost 12th-century Kievan and 13th-century Halychian chronicles. The language of work is the East Slavic version of Church Slavonic language with many additional irregular east-slavisms. Whereas the Laurentian text traces the Kievan legacy through to the Muscovite princes, the Hypatian codex was rediscovered in Kiev in the 1620s and copy was made for Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozhsky. A copy was found in Russia in the 18th century at the Ipatiev Monastery of Kostroma by the Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin, numerous monographs and published versions of the chronicle have been made, the earliest known being in 1767. Aleksey Shakhmatov published a pioneering textological analysis of the narrative in 1908, Dmitry Likhachev and other Soviet scholars partly revisited his findings. Their versions attempted to reconstruct the pre-Nestorian chronicle, compiled at the court of Yaroslav the Wise in the mid-11th century

39.
Slavery
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A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will. Scholars also use the generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour. However – and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word – slaves may have some rights and/or protections, Slavery began to exist before written history, in many cultures. A person could become a slave from the time of their birth, capture, while slavery was institutionally recognized by most societies, it has now been outlawed in all recognized countries, the last being Mauritania in 2007. Nevertheless, there are still more slaves today than at any point in history. The most common form of the trade is now commonly referred to as human trafficking. Chattel slavery is still practiced by the Islamic State of Iraq. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy, there is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as unfree labourer or enslaved person, rather than slave, should be used when describing the victims of slavery. Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel of the owner and are bought, although it dominated many societies in the past, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the system of any internationally recognized government. Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage is a form of labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan. The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription, Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution. And is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil, in 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts. A forced marriage may be regarded as a form of slavery by one or more of the involved in the marriage

40.
Constantine VII
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Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, the Purple-born, was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959. He was the son of the emperor Leo VI and his wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, and the nephew of his predecessor. Constantine VII is best known for his four books, De Administrando Imperio, De Ceremoniis, De Thematibus and his nickname alludes to the Purple Room of the imperial palace, decorated with porphyry, where legitimate children of reigning emperors were normally born. Constantine was also born in this room, although his mother Zoe had not been married to Leo at that time, nevertheless, the epithet allowed him to underline his position as the legitimized son, as opposed to all others who claimed the throne during his lifetime. Sons born to a reigning Emperor held precedence in the Eastern Roman line of succession over elder sons not born in the purple, Constantine was born at Constantinople, an illegitimate son born before an uncanonical fourth marriage. To help legitimize him, his mother gave birth to him in the Purple Room of the palace, hence his nickname Porphyrogennetos. He was symbolically elevated to the throne as a child by his father. In June 913, as his uncle Alexander lay dying, he appointed a regency council for Constantine. Following Alexanders death, the new and shaky regime survived the attempted usurpation of Constantine Doukas, Patriarch Nicholas was presently forced to make peace with Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, whom he reluctantly recognized as Bulgarian emperor. Because of this concession, Patriarch Nicholas was driven out of the regency by Constantines mother Zoe. She was no more successful with the Bulgarians, who defeated her main supporter, in 919 she was replaced as regent by the admiral Romanos Lekapenos, who married his daughter Helena Lekapene to Constantine. Romanos used his position to advance to the ranks of basileopatōr in May 919, to kaisar in September 920, thus, just short of reaching nominal majority, Constantine was eclipsed by a senior emperor. Nevertheless, he was an intelligent young man with a large range of interests. Romanos kept and maintained power until 944, when he was deposed by his sons, Romanos spent the last years of his life in exile on the Island of Prote as a monk and died on June 15,948. With the help of his wife, Constantine VII succeeded in removing his brothers-in-law, several months later, Constantine VII crowned his own son Romanos II co-emperor. In 949 Constantine launched a new fleet of 100 ships against the Arab corsairs hiding in Crete, but like his fathers attempt to retake the island in 911, on the Eastern frontier things went better, even if with alternate success. In 949 the Byzantines conquered Germanicea, repeatedly defeated the enemy armies, but in 953 the Hamdanid amir Sayf al-Daula retook Germanicea and entered the imperial territory. An Arab fleet was destroyed by Greek fire in 957

41.
Dugout canoe
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A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon, monoxylon is Greek -- mono- + ξύλον xylon -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called einbaum, some, but not all, pirogues are also constructed in this manner. Dugouts are the oldest boats archaeologists have found, dating back about 8,000 years to the Neolithic Stone Age and this is probably because they are made of massive pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than, e. g. bark canoes. Along with bark canoe and hide kayak, dugout boats were used by indigenous peoples of the Americas. Construction of a dugout begins with the selection of a log of suitable dimensions, sufficient wood needed to be removed to make the vessel relatively light in weight and buoyant, yet still strong enough to support the crew and cargo. Specific types of wood were often preferred based on their strength, durability, the shape of the boat is then fashioned to minimize drag, with sharp ends at the bow and stern. First the bark is removed from the exterior, before the appearance of metal tools, dugouts were hollowed out using controlled fires. The burnt wood was removed using an adze. Another method using tools is to chop out parallel notches across the span of the wood, then split out. Once hollowed out, the interior was dressed and smoothed out with a knife or adze, more primitive designs keep the trees original dimensions, with a round bottom. However, it is possible to carefully steam the sides of the hollow log until they are pliable, for travel in the rougher waters of the ocean, dugouts can be fitted with outriggers. One or two smaller logs are mounted parallel to the hull by long poles. In the case of two outriggers, one is mounted on either side of the hull, the Dufuna canoe from Nigeria is an 8000-year-old dugout, the oldest boat discovered in Africa, and the third-oldest worldwide. African Teak is the timber favoured for their construction, though this comprises a number of different species, dugouts are called pirogues in Francophone areas of Africa. A 8000-year-old dugout canoe was found by archaeologists in Kuahuqiao, Zhejiang Province and this is the earliest canoe found in Asia. The Moken, an group that lives in Myanmars Mergui Archipelago. It is now on display in front of the Municipal Town Hall, here many dugouts were made from linden wood, for several reasons

42.
Smolensk
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Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River,360 kilometers west-southwest of Moscow. The walled city in the center of Smolensk was destroyed several times throughout its history because it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk is noted for electronics, textiles, food processing, the name of the city is derived from the name of the Smolnya River. The origin of the name is less clear. One possibility is the old Slavic word смоль for black soil, an alternative origin could be the Russian word смола, which means resin, tar, or pitch. Pine trees grow in the area, and the city was once a center of resin processing, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII recorded its name as Μιλινισκα. Within the city and its surroundings the river takes in small tributaries. In the valleys are stretched streets, high ridges, hills, Smolensk is situated on seven hills. The old part of the city occupies the high, rugged left bank of the Dnieper River, the area features undulating terrain, with a large number of tributaries, creeks and ravines. Smolensk is among the oldest Russian cities, the first recorded mention of the city was 863 AD, two years after the founding of Kievan Rus. According to Russian Primary Chronicle, Smolensk was located on the area settled by the West Slavic Radimichs tribe in 882 when Oleg of Novgorod took it in passing from Novgorod to Kiev, the first foreign writer to mention the city was the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. In De Administrando Imperio he described Smolensk as a key station on the route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The Rus people sailed from the Baltics up the Western Dvina as far as they could then they portaged their boats to the upper Dnieper. It was in Smolensk that they supposedly mended any leaks and small holes that might have appeared in their boats from being dragged on the ground and they used tar to do that, the Principality of Smolensk was founded in 1054. Due to its position in Kievan Rus, the city developed rapidly. By the end of the 12th century, the princedom was one of the strongest in Eastern Europe, numerous churches were built in the city at that time, including the church of Sts. Peter and Paul and the church of St. John the Baptist, the most remarkable church in the city is called Svirskaya, it was admired by contemporaries as the most beautiful structure east of Kiev. Smolensk had its own veche since the beginning of its history

43.
Liubech
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Liubech or Lyubech is a small ancient town connected with many important events since the times of Kievan Rus. It is located in Ripky Raion, in Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, Liubech is 250 kilometers north of the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, and located near the Belarusian border. In 1097 the Council of Liubech, also known as the Congress of Rus Princes, was held here and it was initiated by Vladimir II Monomakh and divided the land of the Kievan Rus between the princes. In the 14th century, Lyubech became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in 1632, Polish King Sigismund III Vasa granted Lubecz city rights. It was a city of Poland. From 1635 to 1667 it was part of the Chernihiv Voivodeship of the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown, st. Anthony of the Caves also known as Antony Pechersky, was born in Liubech in 983. He established the first Ukrainian monastery known now as Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Любеч and article in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary

44.
Chernihiv
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Chernihiv also known as Chernigov, a historic city in northern Ukraine, serves as the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast, as well as of the surrounding Chernihiv Raion within the oblast. Administratively, it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance, population,294, 727 Chernihiv stands on the Desna River to the north-north-east of Kiev. The area was served by Chernihiv Shestovitsa Airport, and during the Cold War it was the site of Chernigov air base, Chernihiv was first mentioned in the Rus-Byzantine Treaty, but the time of establishment is not known. According to the items uncovered by archaeological excavations of a settlement which included artifacts from the Khazar Khaganate, towards the end of the 10th century, the city probably had its own rulers. It was there that the Black Grave, one of the largest and earliest royal mounds in Eastern Europe, was excavated in the 19th century, in the southern portion of the Kievan Rus the city was the second by importance and wealth. The grand principality was the largest in Kievan Rus and included not only the Severian towns but even such remote regions as Murom, Ryazan and Tmutarakan. The golden age of Chernihiv, when the city peaked at 25,000, lasted until 1239 when the city was sacked by the hordes of Batu Khan. The area fell under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1353, the areas importance increased again in the middle of the 17th century during and after the Khmelnytsky Uprising. In the Hetman State Chernihiv was the city of deployment of Chernihiv Cossack regiment, under the 1667 Treaty of Andrusovo the legal suzerainty of the area was ceded to Tsardom of Russia, with Chernihiv remaining an important center of the autonomous Cossack Hetmanate. With the abolishment of the Hetmanate, the city became an administrative center of the Russian Empire. According to the census of 1897, in the city of Chernihiv there were about 11,000 Jews out of the population of 27,006. Their primary occupations were industrial and commercial, many tobacco plantations and fruit gardens in the neighborhood were owned by Jews. There were 1,321 Jewish artisans in Chernihiv, including 404 tailors and seamstresses, there were 69 Jewish day-laborers, almost exclusively teamsters. But few were engaged in the factories, during World War II, Chernihiv was occupied by the German Army from 9 September 1941 to 21 September 1943. The Cathedral of Sts Boris and Gleb, dating from the century, was much rebuilt in succeeding periods. Likewise built in brick, it has a dome and six pillars. The crowning achievement of Chernihiv masters was the exquisite Pyatnytska Church and this graceful building was seriously damaged in the Second World War, its original medieval outlook was reconstructed to a design by Peter Baranovsky. The earliest residential buildings in the date from the late 17th century

45.
Vyshhorod
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Vyshhorod or Vyshgorod is a city in Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine, the immediate northern suburb to the national capital Kiev, located upstream along the Dnieper River. It serves as the center of Vyshhorod Raion. Vyshhorod is a town that experienced rises and declines over the centuries. It is now an industrial center as well as a growing bedroom community for Kiev. Vyshhorod is located on a right bank of the Dnieper River adjoining the dam of the Kiev Reservoir. The earliest historical mention of Vyshgorod dates from as early as 946, also mentioned in De Administrando Imperio, Vyshgorod served as the fortified castle and residence of the monarchs of Kievan Rus on the Dnieper from that time until 1240, when the Mongols sacked it. At Vyshhorod Vladimir the Great kept a harem of 300 concubines, after the Mongol invasion, the location does not appear in the records again until 1523 - and even then it was documented as a poor village. Vyshgorod grew considerably following the construction of the hydroelectric Kiev power plant and was incorporated as a town in 1968. In 1934-37 and 1947 the archaeological remnants of the town were excavated. The most striking find was the basement of the eight-pillared Church of St. Basil, founded by Vladimir the Great, as the church was one of the largest in Kievan Rus, it took twenty years to complete it. Before the Mongol invasion the church housed the relics of the first East Slavic saints, Boris and Gleb, the ancient Cossack military monastery, the Mezhyhirskyi Monastery, stood not too far away from the city. Vyshhorod is connected to the Kiev and other destinations mainly by roads, there is also a non-electrified terminus rail connection to Kiev used for both freight transport and peak hour commuter passenger service. Citys riverport facilities are used for industrial purposes only. Jitney buses run between Vyshhorod and the Heroiv Dnipra station of the Kiev Metros Kurenivsko-Chervonoarmiyska Line, Vyshgorod has been famous for its cultural traditions and original talents for ages. The name of Exemplary amateur town children and youth brass band – studio Vodograi is famous not only in Ukraine, the band visited many countries of European Union. Well known and famous not only in Ukraine but also abroad is Korali, Korali is laureate of different national and international festivals and competitions. But the major achievement of the choir is no doubt a victory at International competition named after F. Shubert, Korali won the first prize and the special prize of sponsor sympathy. In the area of the town there is Vyshgorod historical-cultural reserve which includes the Pottery center, the Historical museum, Boris and Gleb – patron saints of the town

46.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders

The economy of the Kingdom of Qataban (light blue) was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh. These were exported to the Mediterranean, India and Abyssinia where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea.

For centuries, the Grand Trunk Road has served as the main artery for travel across Northern India. A scene from the Ambalacantonment during the days of the British Raj.

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and …

Whipping scars during a medical examination in 1863 at a Union military camp in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Gordon had escaped from slavery on a Louisiana plantation and gained freedom shortly after reaching the Union camp, later enlisting and serving in the Union Army.

1840 poster advertising slaves for sale, New Orleans. "Valuable Gang of Young Negroes", 17 men and women, to be sold at auction 25 March 1840 at Banks' Arcade.

A Chinese Nationalist soldier, age 10, member of a Chinese division from the X, boarding planes in Burma bound for China, May 1944.